A review of the membrane gas separation process to remove carbon dioxide from natural gas

Natural gas is composed of light paraffinic hydrocarbons, methane-decane, that methane is itsmajor component. There are some other compositions of aromatics, polycyclic and olefinhydrocarbons, hydrates, sulfur compounds, carbon dioxide, nitrogen existing in natural gasextracted from the well; of them, the compound of sulfur, in particular H2S and CO2 is namedsour gas and the process of removing these compositions called natural gas sweetening. Severaltechnologies are used to remove sour gases from the natural gas flow extracted from wells; oneof these technologies is chemical absorption by amine solvents that are commercially available.One another potential method is gas separation using membrane technology that has been moreconsidered because of its low space occupancy a nd emissions. Both of mentioned technologieshave different advantages and disadvantages. On the other hand, it is essential to identifyfeasibility of m odern m ethod f or na tural gas s weetening also c omparing m odern m ethods w ithcommon commercial methods technically and economically in Iran with enriched natural gasreserves. Hence, this study was conducted to evaluate studies on mentioned processes. Thisappraisal was done based on the current progresses in materials, membranes’ specifications,and modern systematic designs in scope of amine absorption process. For this purpose, theconducted s tudies on bot h pr ocesses i n r ecent years ha ve be en r eviewed.

Keywords:

Natural G as , Sour G as S eparation , M embrane S ystem , A mine Absorption